The Seduction Trap

‘Beggars and women who can’t speak French can’t be choosers,’ she told herself firmly out loud, dismissing the little flurry of nerves which skimmed around her stomach. ‘Hey! Hang on there!’ she shouted, striding quickly towards him before she lost her courage.

The broad shoulders seemed to square before he turned. ‘You again. What a surprise!’ he declared calmly, as if her appearance wasn’t at all unexpected.

‘Isn’t it?’ she replied with a little jut of her chin, trying to steer an even course between being downright discouraging and yet nice enough to enlist his help. Aware of his eyes on her silky bare midriff, she hastily tried to reclaim his attention. ‘Do you live here?’ she asked politely.

Slowly his gaze travelled upwards to her hopeful face. ‘Kind of.’

Touché! she thought tiredly, seeing the small smile playing around his mouth. She found a smile from somewhere too. A cool one. Nothing too friendly. ‘I’m looking for The Old Bakery…’

‘Yes.’

She blinked. Judging by the expression on his face, he was playing with her, making her work for information. Hadn’t he anything better to do? she thought crossly. She drew in a deep breath. ‘It’s in—’

‘Rue Boulangerie,’ he provided, much to her relief. Yet he made no move to say where it was.

‘I know. Where is that, exactly? I’ve been everywhere looking for it,’ she explained, with a patience she didn’t feel. ‘I’ve tramped up and down every street. It doesn’t exist, as far as I can see.’

Her long fingers pushed damp strands of flopping pale blonde hair back behind her ears as she stood dispiritedly before him.

The enigmatic smile spread into a grin of clear delight. ‘Do you mean that no one would tell you where it is?’ he asked cheerfully.

‘I haven’t asked yet,’ she admitted, puzzled. What was going on here? Her heart began to thump. This was creepy. ‘The place is deserted. There was no one to ask. Anyway, I don’t speak French and I wouldn’t have understood what was said. I thought I could find it on my own.’

‘The Old Bakery is where the owner of the holiday lets lives,’ he murmured. ‘You’re staying in one of her cottages?’

‘No, I’m staying with her,’ Tessa corrected him. ‘She’s my mother.’

‘Ah.’ He nodded, as though that explained everything.

Tessa paused, wondering if he’d seen some resemblance earlier and had been trying to place her. ‘She’s expecting me,’ she went on. ‘And she’ll be getting rather worried by now—’

He interrupted her with an involuntary snort of disbelief. ‘Estelle Davis? Worried about another person?’

Tessa bridled at his tone. ‘Yes! Of course! Why not?’

‘She’s not the sort.’

A cold fear ran down Tessa’s back. What did he know of her mother? ‘You’re being extremely rude—’

‘It would be difficult to be otherwise,’ he agreed, quite unfazed.

Tessa felt crushed by his contempt. And increasingly worried. All her life she’d done her best to ignore her doubts, her private belief that her mother had behaved selfishly. This stranger was bringing them back. ‘If you know her—’

‘I know of her. It’s not quite the same thing.’ His gaze held hers with a suddenly chilling intensity that she found rather frightening. ‘And you are?’

She gulped, pierced by the icy black eyes and his expression of frank hostility. It upset her that someone should loathe her mother so much, and through her head went the same question, over and over again. Why?

‘Tessa Davis.’

‘Guy.’

‘Guy,’ she repeated. ‘It sounds French, the way you say it.’

‘It is.’

Not a man who gave much away unless he wanted to. New Orleans French? She gave up trying to work that one out and returned to the worrying connection between her mother and this Guy.

‘You don’t have a very high opinion of my mother,’ she observed flatly.

‘Got it in one.’

Now the dislike was right out in the open, with every line of Guy’s face showing a frank contempt that scared her. Unexpectedly, a film of unshed tears washed over her limpid green eyes. This wasn’t the situation she’d expected at the end of her journey. She’d worked so hard to sweep away all her uncertainties about this reunion, building it up in her mind into a moment of joy and laughter. Suddenly everything was going wrong.

‘I’m sorry if there’s bad feeling between you—’ she began, clasping her shaking hands.

‘That’s too mild a description. I’d call it hostility,’ he said coldly.

Tessa flushed, and concentrated on stopping her mouth from describing a downward droop, angry with her quickly aroused emotions which made her laugh and cry too easily.

She felt so tired. Near to breaking-point, she stood in a pose of utter dejection, furious that a huge teardrop was trickling from the corner of one eye and burning a hot, wet path down her peachy cheek. What a drip she was!

‘Emotional, aren’t you?’ he observed thoughtfully, as if that was an interesting and useful piece of information.

With a quick gesture, she brushed the treacherous tear away and sprang to her own defence. ‘I’m dead beat and I’m hungry, and I’m worried about finding my mother before it’s too pitch-black to see further than my nose!’

‘You have a night-light and a teddy bear for comfort,’ he reminded her, his mouth curved in mocking lines.

Callous brute! She planted her hands on her slender hips in challenge.

‘And you know where her house is. Whatever your feelings for my mother, you might show some courtesy to me, since I’ve done nothing to earn your disapproval, have I? So I’d appreciate it if you’d give me directions,’ she finished assertively.

He appeared to be giving that some thought. ‘I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you there,’ he said at last. And the gleam in his eye as he studied her flat stomach and sensually sheathed thighs suggested that he welcomed the opportunity to prolong their acquaintance.

Tessa took a wary step back. It didn’t seem a good idea to go off with this arrogant male to heaven knew where. ‘Directions will do. Left, right, straight on—that’s fine by me.’

‘The route is too complicated,’ he said blandly. ‘You’d get lost. I’d worry that your teddy bear might lose out on his seven hours of shut-eye.’

‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ she muttered crossly. ‘I’m too ready for a comfortable armchair and a bath to start trudging around and doing mimes on foreign doorsteps. I’ll get my bags.’

He came with her to her bike, insisting on helping her to remove the panniers. There was a silly, polite tug-of-war, then she gave up and allowed him to sling them on his shoulder. She debated whether to put her jacket on, but she felt so hot and flustered, and she decided that she wasn’t going to be intimidated into doing something against her will.

Then, feeling rather like a submissive chattel, she followed in his tracks, blanking out everything but putting one foot in front of the other, each step mercifully one closer to her mother’s house.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_81ad06f7-1373-5e13-a931-7c273cab303e)

A SILENCE fell between them as they wound their way up a narrow, stepped street she didn’t remember seeing before. They passed a couple of large townhouses with mullioned windows and then a half-timbered cottage, whose walls were bright with highly scented climbing roses and honeysuckle. Tessa’s nostrils were swamped with the heady perfume and she couldn’t resist pausing to stick her nose in the velvety petals of a dark red rose.

When she straightened and looked around, she had the unnerving impression that they were the only two people for miles. Not even a dog barked. The rays of the late evening sun burned with a final, merciless intensity on the deserted street and she could feel the heat rising from the stone steps and walls, enveloping her in a suffocating blanket. Scary.